


Verdigris

by mediumrawr



Category: Fringe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/F, Femslash, Workplace Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 11:42:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/661612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mediumrawr/pseuds/mediumrawr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"Excuse me?" she asks. "Do you know where I can find William Bell?"</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The woman stands up from the little waiting couch. She has a warm smile that says it is the lockbox of a thousand secrets. "You must be the AP from Curiosity Division. I'm Doctor Bell's assistant. He had to step out on a call, but I can take those files off you."</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>"Olivia Dunham." Olivia takes the offered hand, which is cold and unexpectedly strong, then releases it so she can get the filepad from her pack.</em>
</p>
<p>In one of a billion billion universes, surely there is one in which any two people may come together - but maybe not easily.</p>
<p>Written for Porn Battle XIV tags: kneel, kiss</p>
            </blockquote>





	Verdigris

**February, 2005**

"Olivia Dunham," she tells the security guard, and presents her badge for identification.

He swipes it and checks his screen, and when it tells him who she is he hands the badge back to her. "APs always pull this shit duty," he comforts her. "It's not just you."

"Lot of APs in my class," she reminds him, but she gives him a smile and tries not to engage him any further. Mostly she wants to get this _shit duty_ over with so she can get back to North Tower and try to get back in good standing with some of her instructors. Even in this enlightened age, even in an agency overloaded with scientists and thinkers, Division is a man's world, and she knows exactly why she pulled shit duty. Even the female agent she stood up for gives her dirty looks for not just going along with the harrassment she saw happening.

The truth is that she doesn't mind this duty so much - the drive gives her plenty of time alone to process things, and she has always valued that. She would do it again, she has realized, and she's comfortable with that even if she's not quite sure what it says about her.

Olivia's orders direct her to an office with only an alphanumeric designation, but the building is well-labeled and there are helpful maps on the walls, so she finds her way quickly. The office in question turns out to be a prep space next to a hearing room, and the only person there is a fiftyish redheaded woman in a suit that screams 'private sector'.

"Excuse me?" she asks. "Do you know where I can find William Bell?"

The woman stands up from the little waiting couch. She has a warm smile that says it is the lockbox of a thousand secrets. "You must be the AP from Curiosity Division. I'm Doctor Bell's assistant. He had to step out on a call, but I can take those files off you."

"Olivia Dunham." Olivia takes the offered hand, which is cold and unexpectedly strong, then releases it so she can get the filepad from her pack.

"Nina Sharp," says the woman who takes the filepad. It turns itself on and reads her thumbprint, then chimes and flashes green. "I hope that's satisfactory."

"Absolutely." She pats her sides, trying to remember the rest of her orders. "If you have any questions about the contents of the files, I'm instructed to assist you."

"Oh, dear." The look on Nina's face could be patronizing, but she pulls it into something that seems mostly kind. "All of these were emailed to us weeks ago. This is just a legal technicality. That's why everyone thinks it's such a waste of their time - because it is. And a waste of yours - though I hope not a total waste. What did you do to get stuck with this assignment?"

For a second Olivia thinks about explaining it all to her. She thinks Nina would be sympathetic to her situation. Even as she hesitates, she thinks Nina can see that there is a whole tragedy in that question's answer. But it feels too much like complaining to teacher to go through with it, so she just says, "It's a long story."

"Well, whatever it is, they didn't drum you out. Just remember - the world's not ending."

"Thank you, ma'am." Olivia turns to look at the door just as a familiar-looking thin, elderly man comes through it.

"Nina, is there any - oh, I didn't realize we had company."

"William," she says, "This is Curiosity Agent Olivia Dunham. Agent Dunham, this is Doctor William Bell."

"Agent Provisional," Olivia corrects automatically, but she puts out her hand and Doctor Bell gives it a friendly, two-handed shake.

"Not for much longer, I hope," he says. "I'm afraid they're going to need me in the hearing room. I look forward to being your boss, if all goes well in there."

"Good luck," she says. She doesn't really know this Doctor Bell and couldn't care one way or another whether he's the one who ends up being Secretary of Science and Technology, but it seems polite.

When they're alone, Nina gives her one of those knowing looks. "If you're looking for a career, he'd be a good friend to have."

"And you? What's your job title going to be when he gets the job?"

"Well done, Agent Dunham. Yes, I might be a good friend to have too. New York's a long ride from here - would you like to stay and have a chat? I have a spare hour before William needs me in there with him."

* * *

**May, 2007**

"Olivia," says Nina, "Are you sure about this? Once we do this, there's no backing out."

The agent shakes her head patiently. "We talked about this when I volunteered, Nina. Secretary Bell says this drug can unlock pieces of the mind we lost from childhood. Doesn't that sound exactly like what I need?"

They both know that Nina thinks Olivia's attachment to the missing years in her memories is unhealthy, but Nina doesn't say that. She sighs, signs the witness line on the consent form, and waves Olivia through to the exam room.

The doctors strap her down to the exam chair, as the provided paperwork had already explained would happen. Olivia looks over and sees Nina in the exam room window, a strange apprehension on her face. 

Olivia gives her a reassuring smile.

The scientists administer a general anesthetic. Someone says something about counting backward from a hundred, but she hasn't even gotten her lips around the 'H' yet when she loses consciousness.

Olivia comes to to the feeling of someone slapping her cheek softly. She lifts her arms to fend them off and realizes they've been untied. She opens her eyes. She sees: Nina in front of her, trying to draw her attention; medical machinery scattered and sparking in the corners of the room; the overhead lights, turned off; the emergency lights on the wall, turned on; the exam room window - shattered.

"Olivia," exclaims Nina. "Do you know where you are?"

"Exam room B, Curiosity Division, twenty-first floor, North Tower, New York - I hope. What the hell happened?"

Nina looks around - evidently, as shocked as she is. "You happened." She clasps Olivia's wrist, perhaps to lead into an explanation, but it's just then that Secretary Bell storms into the exam room with as much force as a thin, elderly man can manage.

A conversation proceeds between Nina and the Secretary that passes in and out of technical language Olivia does not understand. She gleans two things from it: one, that, after receiving the cortexiphan injection, she began to seize in the chair, following which the lights and every electronic device in the room short-circuited, and, when one of the scientists tried to approach her, some kind of shock wave emanated from right where she was sitting, threw everything in the room back, and destroyed the window; two, that a whole lot of other Department workers have volunteered for the same study, and that not one of them recorded any such effects.

Then the Secretary moves on to questioning her about things she has already answered on the paperwork for the study. The only thing the interrogation produces is a headache until he asks whether she has ever participated in an experimental study before.

"When I was three," she says. "There was a daycare center run by... Walter Bishop. He gave us something. I don't think he ever told us what it was."

"Well - Why isn't this on the medical history form?" 

Olivia smiles. "I didn't remember - I mean, I didn't remember anything from before I was nine. But I remember now." 

Her smile fades.

"I remember everything."

Oblivious, the Secretary says, "I knew Dr. Bishop by acquaintance once, a very long time ago. Very brilliant, very unstable man. I must say, I'm not surprised that he discovered cortexiphan on his own - or that he would experiment with it on children."

The agent just feels the memories of her girlhood closing in on her.

"I'm afraid he's dead now," says Bell. "Committed suicide near a cabin he kept upstate. I read about it at the time."

"William," says Nina, "Agent Dunham has had a trying day. Perhaps we can continue this debriefing later?"

"Oh! Of course - of course!"

When he leaves, Olivia looks down at her hand and realizes that Nina is still holding it. She look back up at Nina, and understands that Nina has just realized the same thing.

* * *

**March, 2008**

There is a moment of disorientation as she wakes up, compounded by a slight headache, but, when she reaches for her bedside lamp and hits only papers on a low table, Olivia remembers where she is. That recovers memories of the night before - disturbing Nina's evening with another breakdown, being treated to Nina's patience and kindness without a word of disappointment, and eventually, she thinks, falling asleep on the couch. Though there had been no blanket and no pillow then.

Charlie and Astrid are good teammates, she knows, and either one of them would be happy to share what she is going through with her. In fact, each of them has made separate overtures about it. Even Broyles, who doesn't like her much but at least respects her ability, would probably hear her out. But her throat closes up when she think of talking about her childhood with them. She could blame it on Astrid having the world's best father or Charlie having parents who even get along with his wife, but in the recesses of her mind she knows that's a cop-out.

They kissed last night. Olivia remembers it suddenly. 'They kissed' is probably even too strong a way of putting it. There was a moment when Olivia leaned forward, barely seeing through raw eyes, and Nina had taken a tenth of a second too long to lean away.

Nina had said they would talk about it in the morning, which sounds now to Olivia like a really good reason to get out of Nina's house before Nina is awake to enforce that idea.

"You're not getting out of it that easy," says Nina, who apparently is standing in the kitchen door holding two cups of coffee.

"What time is it?"

"Four forty-five. Almost time for work."

"You're insane. Is that for me?"

Nina walks over with the second cup of coffee and sets it on the table. "It is. I'd like to talk about what happened last night."

Olivia sips. "What do you mean?"

"Nice try."

"Fine." She stares at her coffee. "I was emotional. It was a mistake."

For a long time, her older friend says nothing. When Olivia finally looks up, she realizes that Nina is staring out the window into the unilluminated night.

Olivia takes another sip of her coffee, buying time to think, and then says, "I don't know - "

"Are you sure this is how you want to do this?" Nina interrupts. "I won't waste time with emotional games."

It does take a second for Olivia to figure out the implication behind Nina's words, that she _would_ go further if Olivia asked, just as it took her a second, at the end of the very first lunch they shared, that she was being proposition, to realize that she was being propositioned.

But when she looks at herself Olivia knows she's no catch. She likes the way she looks in the mirror, but underneath that is a broken girl whose abusive father rented her out to a mad scientist, who eventually murdered him, who repressed the memories... who spent so much of her life a prisoner of her own broken brain. It flatters her that Nina is willing, but Olivia can't risk the closest friendship she has when the very idea of dating brings her close to panic.

She's good at work. As long as she stays focused on her work, she can get through this part of her life to somewhere sane (where the lights don't flicker when she sneezes, for example).

* * *

**November, 2008**

Nina is loading her belongings into boxes when Olivia comes into her office.

"So that's it?"

The older woman gives her a sad smile. "Olivia. I'm pleased to see you."

Olivia knows Nina too well by now to get derailed so easily. "I don't want you to leave."

Nina pauses with one of her diplomas, down from the wall, held in her hands. "That's out of my hands. William was a Bradley man, and Bradley's going. I know you don't pay much attention to politics, dear, but there was an election."

Those cutting remarks are a sign of Nina's stress, Olivia knows, and she has learned to put them aside. Instead, she walks to stand across from Nina at the desk. "That's Bell, Nina. That's not you. Assistant Secretary's not a political appointment."

"Even if that were true," Nina says through a false smile, "William needs me."

That sentence makes an uncomfortable feeling burrow in Olivia's gut. "So where's he dragging you off to this time? Did he even ask you if you wanted to go?"

The older woman pauses at that, then places the diploma neatly into the box. Eventually, she says, "He did ask, and I said yes. And it's Seattle, for now. Assembly Group wants William to be CEO."

Olivia nods. "Seattle."

"Oh, Olive..." As if realizing for the first time her friend's actual concern, Nina rounds her desk to grasp Olivia's shoulders. "I'll - "

"No, you won't. It's _Seattle_. Don't lie to me too."

Nina nods, though her hands fall from the young agent's shoulders. "I will. I will find a way, I promise. Olivia... I have come to treasure you in my life. I will call, and I will be back in New York frequently on business."

"You know what gets me?" says Olivia. "You didn't even think about me. Bell's going to Seattle, so you're going to Seattle, and where I was? Didn't even factor into it. You just... didn't even think about me."

"You've hardly given me a reason to," Nina snaps. She turns smartly and goes to pull management books down from the shelves.

"What if I did?" Olivia scratches her forehead, taking half a moment to think and stop herself from _really_ thinking, and says, "I could give you a reason."

She watches Nina pause, and hunch, and, though Nina is in the middle of saying something else, Olivia has all the confirmation she needs. She grabs Nina and spins her and kisses her, just like that, and Nina kisses back without a moment's hesitation. Their lips open together, and Nina's the one who drops whatever book she's holding and grabs the lapel of Olivia's jacket.

"Stay," she says into Nina's mouth.

The older woman - technically, the ill-timed thought goes, her boss's boss - shoves her back into the desk and straddles her legs.

Olivia fumbles at Nina's belt, thinking it must be the desperation that is making her so warm - or the warmth that is making her so desperate. While she tries, Nina expertly unbuttons the agent's shirt and kisses her sternum. Finally, Olivia gets the belt and the, with more ease, the fly of Nina's pants.

She cups Nina's sex over her underpants. Nina's smile, Olivia's reward, is more predatory than she expected.

"You could be more persuasive," says Nina.

So the beautiful agent sinks to her knees. Nina's hand tangles in her hair. Olivia pulls down the older woman's panties - and begins to lick.

Nina's groans and moans give Olivia a heady, powerful feeling. She, she knows, can make a woman do this. Her own hands fondle her own breasts in rhythm with her licks.

"Stay," she says. She brings her fingers to bear as well.

Then Nina drops to her knees too. The older woman, even with fingers still working inside her, even as her hands now set to undoing Olivia's trousers, maintains perfect focus on Olivia's eyes, and that stare has Olivia bucking before Nina's even really touched her.

Then she _has_ touched her. The world shifts. Their gazes lock into each other and into the signs of each other's need. The fingers themselves might be secondary to that feeling. They both shift on their knees, over and over, trying to get the other to make contact with them in just the right way.

"Stay," groans Olivia.

"Come with me," groans Nina.

"You mean - now, or, to - "

Nina clenches around Olivia's fingers. "Both."

Olivia's eyes slam shut. Behind her eyelids, either from the cortexiphan or from ordinary human intuition, she can actually see two futures stretching out in front of her - one here, and one in Seattle.

Her eyes open. She is ready. Nina nods. They tumble over the edge together.


End file.
